


Bigger Than Myself

by mortalitasi



Series: a crown of poppies [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Friendship, General, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 10:53:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2729753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five moments she's only the Inquisition, five she's just herself. So why do those last few bits feel lesser than the ones that come before it? Maybe she's taken too much away from the Lavellan she used to be.</p><p>And she's not sure she even cares. Not anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bigger Than Myself

THERE ARE TIMES WHEN YOU HAVE TO LET GO, SO YOU CAN  
BE MORE THAN WHAT YOU ARE. SO YOU CAN BE  
_WHAT YOU MUST._

…

 

 

She learned to smith and forge under Master Eranthil.

Any hunter worth her salt could repair her own weapons and those of others’—indeed, she could make them, find them, and assist anyone in their creation, if only in the basest of ways. They’d been planning to have her take over for Master Eranthil after the Conclave. She’d looked down at the tools that she’d watched the Master use over the years of her apprenticeship and adolescence, her childhood, the days when she didn’t even know there was a word for them, and had wondered if she could fill the role of the woman before her.

“Are you sure you want me to? I might break most of these,” Nehn had said, trying to laugh the worry away. That’s always been one of her bigger faults—smiling in the face of misery, or anxiety, or danger—attempting to bridge the gap between herself and reality with jokes, with humor. She _has_ to laugh. She doesn’t want to know what would happen if she didn’t. Her mother had hated it.

Eranthil had just smiled her own cryptic version of Nehn’s grin right then, the corners of her thin mouth turning upward. She’d been a quiet one, not much disposed to talking, but not sullen. Just poised. Calm. She always knew what to do. Nehn wishes she could have that sort of certainty. It’d probably be useful to have in the event of holes appearing in the sky to shit out copious amounts of demons.

“There is no one else I would trust with the forge, da’len,” Eranthil had continued. She’d pressed a work-hammer into Nehn’s palm, the one with the oaken handle worn smooth by years of work, little slopes in the wood where your fingers could slip in place to hold it better. “Besides—I am not dead just yet. I will be watching. You won’t break _too_ much. I shall make sure of it.”

 

 

She pictures the time she observed the Master pouring a stream of precious silverite into a branching mold for a gauntlet, seeing the molten metal spread and flow deep, smelling the tang of metal as the steam and smoke rose from the mold.

That’s what drinking dragon blood had felt like. _Fire_. Liquid fire. Burning, everywhere, from the tips of her fingers to the ends of her toes, heart racing like it was going to burst against the confines of her ribs, each breath another gasp of bellows to stoke the blaze. She hadn’t known there were embers in her stomach, and now they’re all she can focus on. Fire. Fire. It’s fever, but it isn’t. The sweats come and go, though they don’t make much difference—she’s hot, no matter what. The only reason she curls in the sheets is for comfort, out of habit. She doesn’t thinks she’ll ever be cold again.

She’d said she became a reaver to hit harder, and it was partly true. She _does_ need to hit harder, move faster, to withstand more punishment, to be able to guarantee she’s the last one standing—but the other part of it had been something stupider. Something more selfish. She’s already come so far from hunter Lavellan, from Nehn, from the foolish girl that played in thawing brooks and fell from trees and left frogs in the Keeper’s bedroll, and what better way to completely kick that dumb kid to the curb than to down the blood of a gigantic homicidal reptile _?_

Yes, she’s aware, a completely logical conclusion.

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea. She’s full of those. Dragon blood’s killed better men, better women, better _people_. But it was a challenge, and she thought at first that she just wanted it—now she knows she needed it. She needs this. To prove to herself that she’s strong enough. To prove that it’s not just because of luck that she can survive, but tests she sets for herself. Another great idea.

She hears the door at the base of the stairs creak open, listens to the thudding steps of someone ascending. She knows who it is just by that. Her hearing had been good before. Now? She could probably hear a fly cough and rub its legs together across the courtyard.

“Hey,” Varric says, and she cracks her eyes open to look at him. The morning sunlight coming through the half-drawn drapes is almost too bright, the motes too many, the details too sharp. Everything is too... _everything_. “Wow. You look…”

She laughs raspily. “Like shite?”

He smirks at her. “Well, I guess that could work. _My_ honest answer would probably have Curly throwing me out a window—and I like my neck, so if you don’t mind, I won’t say.”

“Good thing he isn’t here, then,” she remarks. She lifts one tired hand to rake the hair away from her face. It takes about as much effort as moving a hill.

Varric draws up a chair and sits at her bedside, resting his elbows on his knees. “He’s busy drowning in… whatever a commander of the Inquisition drowns in. But he _did_ ask me to check on you.”

“That sounds like him,” Nehn admits, shutting her eyes again. “I’m fine. Sort of.”

“As fine as you can be after taking that _thing_ you mixed up,” Varric says. His face screws up in a frown. “What the hell, Boss?”

She exhales. That feels hot, too. She might be turning _into_ a dragon. Well, if she does, she can eat Corypheus and it’ll all be done with. That actually doesn’t sound too bad.

“It seemed like a totally viable course of action right then,” she says, though the defense falls limp as soon as it passes her lips. “On the flip side, if I do make it, I’ll only have an incredibly high chance of going barking mad later. I might even grow scales.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Varric states drily. “How about I take your mind off of it?”

“You have a plan?”

“Always.”

“…Does it involve getting up?”

He chuckles, and then something rustles. Paper? “No, you don’t have to worry. What you have to do is listen and tell me whether any of this sounds good. You should feel special. Not everyone gets to see a Tethras work-in-progress.”

That nearly makes her draw herself upward. _Nearly_. “Mythal’s teeth. Is this what I think it is?”

“I hope you realize how much I like you, Boss. I wouldn’t write _Swords & Shields_ under anyone else’s orders.”

She really laughs at that, loud and open. “You _do_ care about Cassandra.”

“I don’t.”

“Oh, come now, Varric. Why else would you be writing?”

He snorts as he draws a quill out of one of his many side-pouches. “So I don’t get my head lopped off without warning? I’m already short enough.”

“She wouldn’t do that without asking me first,” Nehn says. One of the straps of her nightshirt falls of her shoulder and she pushes it back up.

“Thanks, that’s very reassuring,” Varric replies, not sounding like he’s thankful at all. “Anyway, we’re starting with a scene between the viscount and the revered mother—”

And that’s when the door to the room opens for a second time in as many minutes, but this one is an ostentatious bang that causes her head to ring.

“Oh no,” she says, just as a voice drifts up from the stairwell.

“Greetings to everyone!”

Nehn lets her head fall back on the pillow and groans. “What are you doing here?”

Dorian has the courtesy to look offended. He shows her the red box he’s holding. “I brought Orlesian bonbons _and_ cream puffs. I may hate their politics, but I do love their food. Sometimes.”

“I don’t feel like eating,” Nehn sighs.

“I never said they were for you,” he answers smoothly and winks at her. He plops down at the foot of her bed and crosses his legs before leisurely popping the lid of the box open. The scent of powdered sugar and chocolate reaches her in less than half a minute, and though her stomach is roiling, she has to concede to the fact that it still smells incredibly good.

She lightly kicks him on the back and he nearly loses the cream puff he’s picked out of the box. “You’re an arse,” she says very seriously.

He bites into his snack and the white sugar clings to his dark mustache. “But a devastatingly handsome one.”

“Who invited you, anyway?” she asks, though she has a strong suspicion about who did.

“Our esteemed author, of course,” Dorian tells her around a mouthful of confectionary. “If it mortifies our lady Seeker, I aim to be part of it.”

“Okay, lovebirds, we have work to do. Viscount. Revered mother. Sparkler, pass the fat creamy things.”

Dorian proffers the box reluctantly, with the caution of a wary stray. “Only one. No roguish cheating. I have lightning.”

Varric waggles his fingers. “Nice try. You need me if you want to see the Seeker squirm. Give it up.”

“Point taken,” Dorian says grudgingly and then lets him have the box.

“Not that I don’t mind you _taking over my room_ , but are you planning on staying long?” Nehn cuts in, now attempting to brace herself up with her hands. Nope. Still exhausted.

“As long as it takes to finish this chapter,” Varric informs with a shrug.

“Your chapters are _marathons_!” she says, eyes widening.

“Better get started, then,” is all he says. He hands the red box back to Dorian and starts on his own cream puff.

She scowls. “I hate you both.”

Dorian pats her knee in friendly affection. “We love you too, my dear.”

 

…

 

The single note of the red lyrium’s song is stuck in her head.

It has been since they came back from Emprise du Lion. In camp, in sleep, on the road, during lunch, during dinner, whenever she thought she had a spell in which to breathe or rest or do something other than focus on drudgery, it would come back, soft at first, then sharp, then soft, sharp again, like the turn of the skinning knife cutting through newly-killed game. She expected this. It’s probably not full-blown lyrium madness, but she was willing to bet that the repeated exposure had affected her. Now she knows.

She’s hoping sorting through the documents Josephine gave her to sign will make it go away. It’s not. She keeps signing them anyway. Her penmanship has been through a transformation. Josie guaranteed that—and without mercy. “Chicken-scratch,” Josephine had gasped upon seeing it for the first time.

Nehn finishes signing one more and stops short when she realizes she’s humming. She hits the side of her face, hard, wanting that to shock it out of her. That doesn’t work either. What a surprise. She pinches at her brow with her fingers, staring down at her abandoned quill and the sheaf of papers that are waiting for her care. Something moves in her field of vision, beyond her desk, the flare of a tunic, and she freezes.

“Hello.”

She shuts her eyes, slowly. She’s seen hints of it around for days. Flutters in the dark, silhouettes in the doorway, shapes in the corner of her eye. She didn’t want to believe it.

“Are you going to look at me?”

“Give me a second,” she says, feeling her pulse jump at the sound of the familiar voice. When she finally does gather her courage, Nehn turns her gaze upward, and the air in her lungs leaves her in one steady stream. The telltale sting of crying builds in her. “You… don’t look any different.”

The barefoot girl in the faded yellow tunic rolls back on the balls of her heels, clasping her hands at her back. She’s standing with her back to the second window, outlined in the dying light of the sunset. Her blonde curls bounce around her shoulders. “Of course I don’t. You remember me this way, so this is how I appear to you.”

“At least you’re not a demon,” Nehn says. The fake cheer in her tone breaks at the end of that sentence.

“Are you sure?” the girl says in return. She leans back, forward. Back again. It’s—it was—a habit of hers. “I could be. Technically. If you consider the red lyrium demonic.”

“It _is_ alive,” Nehn reminds her. “So maybe you are, too. In part.”

The girl giggles, childish and happy and empty. This isn’t real. But it feels real. Sounds real. “You _would_ say that to yourself, wouldn’t you? Nehn, ever the optimist. Jokester. Prank-puller. Fancy names for a liar.”

Nehn lowers her face into her hands, scraping her nails along her scalp. “Please, stop,” she whispers. The last few threads of whatever’s holding her together in her head are fraying. “I’m doing my best.”

“And you’re scared it won’t be good enough. Just like it wasn’t.”

She moves her attention back up, to the child with the blue eyes and the kind face. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“I don’t know how to _be_ anything,” the girl responds. “All I am is _you_.”

The laughter that bubbles out of her borders on the hysterical. “This is so surreal.”

“That’s what you get for skulking around red lyrium quarries,” the girl says in a sing-song, sticking her tongue out at Nehn. “You should take a break. Unless you want to keep seeing me.”

“I—I…” She can’t finish that statement. She’s not certain she even knew how it started. She bangs her knees on the inside of the desk when she hears a knock on the door. Whoever it is can’t see her like this. She gathers the hair out of her face and straightens the sloppy crumple of her finery, rearranges the papers and aligns the inkwell with the edge of the desk. The girl just looks on as that happens, and remains where she is, unfading, while Nehn calls out. “Come in!”

She sees the top of his head before the rest comes along up the stairs, because Cullen is frightfully tall and it sometimes seems funny to her. She doesn’t know how he gets around in that fluffy armor constantly. She’d have a hard time seeing anything if she were in it.

“I hope I’m not disturbing,” he says when he sees the papers strewn across her desk.

“No, you aren’t,” she confirms. She only notices she’s still staring at the girl when Cullen turns a little to look at the space to his right, and she knows from the expression on his face that he can’t see anything there. She _is_ going insane. It doesn’t feel quite as uncontrollable or horrible as she believed it would. Instead, it feels inevitable. That’s unsettling.

“Are you alright?” he asks quietly, and she blinks, forcing herself to look at him instead.

She nods. The girl is on her tiptoes, stretching her mouth comically with her fingers. “Just tired.”

“Perhaps you should retire for the day,” Cullen suggests. He walks toward the desk and she’s grateful for it—it blocks her view of the apparition. The faint clink of his armor’s buckles is familiar. Soothing. “It’s getting late.”

“Somewhat,” she says, full of regret. “I wanted to finish these tonight.”

“You can’t always do everything in one day,” he admonishes. The tips of his gloved fingers skim the papers. “There’s a tomorrow as well.”

She has to bite back a very unladylike guffaw. “Coming from anyone else, that would be sound advice. From you? _Hilarious_.”

His nose wrinkles in something like distaste and he crosses his arms. “I know how to pace myself.”

Nehn does snort at that despite herself. “You’re cute when you pout.”

He splutters, just like she predicted he would. It’s absurdly easy to fluster him. First comes the stuttering, then the fumbling, and then the blushing. Which should be coming right about… now. There we go. Red as a tomato. It spreads from his cheeks, way down to his collarbone and then up, to the roots of his light hair. Adorable. And a welcome distraction from the thing at the window.

“ _Pouting?_ …Cute?”

She beams at him. “Would you like me to repeat it?”

“ _No_.”

Nehn props her elbows up on the desk and rests her chin on her palms, watching him expectantly. It’s delightful that she can just throw a glance at him to send him into a tizzy. She can’t say she’s had that effect on another person, ever. It might be going to her head, a tad. He clears his throat and fixes his eyes on the carpet underneath him. It must be a fascinating carpet.

“So, is there something I can help you with, or…?”

He rubs at the back of his neck with a hand. “I was just—all I—uh… I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Well, here I am,” she says, thoroughly amused. “Do I come up to standard?”

“Yes,” he blurts, and at her mirth he covers his face. “What I _meant_ was… Maker. I need to stop.”

“Don’t. Please go on.”

It’s his turn to laugh. She thinks he should do that more often. Suits him. “You’re relentless.”

“Only because your reactions are stellar,” Nehn confesses. That turns the red spots on his cheeks to scarlet. “But, as much as I love them, I don’t want you to spontaneously combust. I’m well. Go rest. I know you’ve had a long day.”

A flicker of thoughtfulness passes over his countenance, and then he comes to lean on the desk, supporting his weight on both hands, so close that she can see the trail of the scar on his lip. He smells clean, plain soap and leather, warm fur and iron, and for some reason he likes her. A lot. Not what she predicted to find in the Inquisition, but she’s not complaining. He looks at her for a long moment before bridging the gap between them to press a kiss to her brow, warm and unhurried.

“You’re sure?” he says. She butts her forehead to his, lightly.

“Very sure. Shoo. Get some sleep. Contrary to popular belief, you need it.”

 Cullen chuckles. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight,” she murmurs, and her gaze follows him as he leaves.

It’s silent for a few seconds after the door shuts.

The girl skips around in a circle, kicking up her feet. “You may lose them.”

Nehn’s voice is barely a whisper when she speaks next. “I know. You’re not her. Frida would never tell me that.”

“It’s what you’re afraid she would, if she were still here. I’m her reflection. Isn’t it the same?”

“It isn’t,” Nehn says. The protest is weak. “Go away. Just… go away.”

The phantom swings its hands around. It casts no shadow. “I’ll go when your guilt is gone. Let’s have fun together.”

“I’m losing my mind.”

That innocent giggle comes around again. “Yes!”

And as the first tear streaks down her cheek, the dead girl smiles at her.

 

…

 

Haven is burning.

She can still feel the heat of the fire on her back. The arm Corypheus held her up by is wrenched and painful. Even moving her fingers sends shoots of agony racing through her muscles. She guesses it’s a good thing the rest of her body is numb, then. She doesn’t know how many minutes—hours?—she’s spent trudging in almost waist-deep snow. She’s broken two ribs. Maybe more. When she finishes climbing a steep hill, she catches sight of blood dotting the snow. Since there’s no one else around, she supposes it has to be coming from her.

Her hand creeps down to her left side. Slippery. So that’s it.

She lost her hairband sometime between fighting off the despair demons and opening a rift to dispose of them. That had been new. The loss of the band is probably not important, but she focuses on it. Such a miniscule, insignificant fact, and yet it bothers her. The winding fall of the loose parts of her hair catches on her pauldrons, pulling unpleasantly. It’s inconveniently long for a warrior to have. She can’t muster the courage to cut it, so she’s contended with twisting it into braids, or a bun. You have to make do with what you have, right? Containing hair, killing demons, bringing an entire mountain down by sheer chance _and_ surviving… making do.

It occurs to her that she has a good chance of dying before getting to… getting to where? _Some_ where. She had a destination after she stumbled across that still-warm pile of embers, she just can’t remember what it was. She’d seen lights in the distance. Or she’d thought she’d seen them. It doesn’t matter if they were actual lights or figments of her imagination (highly detailed figments of her imagination). She has to have a goal. Without one, it’s going to end.

 _I need to fix this_ , she thinks. _I couldn’t protect them. Again. I lost people. This is my fault._

Isn’t everything? If she’d been taking her job as Herald more seriously, if she’d just been more watchful, more careful, they could have seen this coming. They could have gone further. Defended Haven.

The snow is barely parting for her. Any energy the stress of having to escape afforded her is gone. It’s a miracle she can keep walking. She’s tired. She just wants to lie down and sleep, right here, in the middle of the flurries of powdered ice and the falling trails of gossamer white. There’s no chill, no freeze. Only the weariness that clings to her bones, to her heart. Only that.

_Creators, if you’re listening—if you ever have—give me the strength to not fail them. I won’t be able to stand it. Just this one thing, I ask you. Just this one._

There’s a boulder just up ahead. She staggers to it, and then it’s like every joint in her body fails. She slumps, shoulder hitting the rock, faintly feeling the impact through the sleeve of her mail shirt.

“There! It’s her!”

“Thank the Maker!”

Lovely. Waking dreams. Quick footsteps crunch in the snow—multiple sets of them. She sees what seems to be Josie’s finely-woven slippers, then the lilac steel of Leliana’s greaves, the hem of Cassandra’s burgundy tunic, and finally, the worn leather boots of the Inquisition’s commander. What a convincing delusion this is. May as well give up right now. The unknown power sustaining her balance vanishes, and she falls to her knees. The relief that single action brings her is unlike anything she’s experienced thus far, and lately she’s been experiencing too much. Something catches her before she can gracelessly flop backwards. Leliana on one arm—Cullen on the other.

 _You look worried_ , she wants to say, but the words can’t make it out. Why is he worried? Her head lolls in quite a lot of directions before it decides to _not_ do that anymore, and then she finally understands that she’s looking at the sky. The snow has stopped. Stars are out, shining with cold winter light, fearless and brilliant and striking against the ebon of the sky. It’s so clear. It’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

The sky rushes to her, fills the space behind her eyelids. It all goes dark, but she’s not afraid. She has the stars.

 

…

 

“Staying by the waterside almost guarantees contact with predators,” Cassandra is saying as Nehn yanks off her boots so she can dip her feet in the water. Behind her, Dorian is situating himself carefully on a rock—one he makes _sure_ is dry first—and Varric has already seated himself on a bank of mossy ground replete with clovers and daffodils.

“Elgar’nan himself could show up and I wouldn’t budge,” the Inquisitor says, and lets herself down on the grass with a heaving sigh of happiness. “We need a breather. Even you. Is that _sweat_ dotting your brow, Seeker?”

Cassandra’s brows shoot upward, and the action is so quick that it looks nearly automatic. “It is a hot day.”

Nehn gestures to the river and the roaring falls with one haphazard wave. “Which is precisely why we’re here. Look at it! Silver Spray. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

“All the Dales are,” Cassandra murmurs, turning her eyes to the waterfall. Her profile is a proud thing, one of those that you see hewn out of marble more often than you see on a _person_. Cassandra wears it well. She probably has no idea just how well. It’s part of her charm, or adds to lack thereof, if you ask Varric. “Though they have seen such conflict…”

“Sit,” Nehn commands and points to the spot next to her.

“And what if we are set upon by a giant?” Cassandra asks, mouth pinching tight.

“I will personally politely tell him to leave,” Nehn says. “Now. _Sit._ ”

Cassandra’s reply consists of a displeased sound, the kind Varric usually receives for being glib, but she eventually kneels and takes her place by the Inquisitor.

“I am _not_ taking my boots off,” Cassandra says, very emphatic about it, as well.

“I didn’t suggest you should,” she assures. The protest gets her a wry smile.

“You don’t have to.”

The Inquisitor shrugs and continues staring at the way the spray arcs high above the rocks, glittering, every color in the rainbow caught in the spaces between light and air. Clan Lavellan had only ever trekked through the Dales in passing—the Marches were their primary haunt, where Nehn tells people she’s from if they ever inquire, and now she regrets not having explored the Graves further. Being here feels like coming home—the way Skyhold feels. There aren’t many places she can say that about. She gathers some water into the cup of her hands and washes her face. The shock of it cools her burning cheeks.

“Ah, perfect.”

“It reminds me of the public baths in Minrathous,” Dorian says suddenly. “Only… colder.”

“Would you like to find out just how much colder?”

He draws himself back, inching beyond her reach as though she could just yank him from his perch on the rock with the power of her mind. “No, not especially.”

“Shame,” Nehn says, and starts pulling off her gauntlets. They clink and clatter as she abandons them on the grass. “Because I would have liked to have a comparison.”

The next time she sees Dorian’s face is after she slips out of her hauberk. What she sees on it is something between abject horror and disbelief. She continues with unbuckling her greaves, picking each piece of armor apart, gambeson and faulds, until she’s just in her binder and leggings, bare toes wiggling. Finally, she rips the tie from her hair, shaking it out fiercely.

“You’re not—”

She grins at him, pointy teeth and everything. “I am.”

“You’re _insane_!”

“So I’ve been told,” she yells over her shoulder just before she leaps.

She descends with a burble and a splash, and she lets herself sink, weightless. The world is a monochrome of blue and green, gloom below, the promise of sunlight above, breaking through the surface. Most of it doesn’t reach the bottom of the basin beneath the bulk of the Silver Spray. There’s a slight current dragging her toward the river, but it’s not irresistible. This isn’t as bad as some of the lakes she’s bathed in during the Marcher winter—compared to those, this could be considered tepid. The best thing about swimming is the sensation of _flying_. There are no limits here, just the barrier of breath. Which, unfortunately, she’s beginning to need.

Cassandra is on the lookout when the Inquisitor comes up for air. Her leader doesn’t _look_ like a leader, only like a startlingly young woman who’s taken a dive. The heat has brought out Lavellan’s freckles more than usual (which is a lot). The Inquisitor is always someone you can pick out of a crowd, for better or worse. Her features, though distinctive, are not the sort you think of as pretty at first sight—there’s a sharpness in them that does not lend itself to immediate kindness, but they _are_ honest. She’s quick to smile and quick to joke, something Cassandra herself has never had an affinity for.

“Do I have a frog on my head or what?” the Inquisitor says from where she’s treading water.

“Your hair. It is long,” Cassandra states. The Inquisitor turns around to catch the tail of the aforementioned hair drift around after her. It’s the color of apricots—unusual, strange, and oddly suited to her. She’s a collection of angles and forms and patterns that shouldn’t match, and yet, they do. At least a bit.

“I suppose it is,” Nehn says as she nears the bank.

“Longer than I _thought_ it’d be,” Cassandra clarifies.

The Inquisitor grasps at the lip of the bank. “I had it as short as yours when I was younger, you know. My mother—she had to shear most of it off after I got tree sap in it. There was no saving it.”

Cassandra pulls a face at that. “You must have been an… interesting child.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘blight.’ I was a blight.”

“Capital ‘B?’” Varric says. He’s been busy with looking over Bianca for the last five minutes.

“I wasn’t thinking it, no, but I’m sure my mother would disagree,” the Inquisitor says, reflecting on it. “Sometimes I’m not sure how she managed to raise me.”

“Not at all, if you ask the clergy’s opinion,” Dorian points out. “You heretical savage.”

Nehn slaps a hand over her heart. “You wound me, serah!”

“Good.”

“Not _every_ Chantry member believes the drivel circulated about the Dalish,” Cassandra observes, voice stiff. “Or any elves, for that matter.”

“Go ahead and tell them about it, then,” Dorian says. “The incongruity may just make them _explode_. That will be terribly fun to watch, even though I’ll probably be blamed directly afterward. You Southerners do seem to like doing that to mages.”

Months ago, that would have warranted Cassandra dearly wishing to lob something at him, perhaps glaring at him with an intensity that could wither a pot of healthy elfroot—now it’s only an eye-roll, and an echo of what could be a disgusted noise. Cassandra specializes in those.

“Inquisitor, are we going to sta—”

 _Splash_.

Cassandra stops moving. Slowly turns her head toward Lavellan as the water crawls down the side of her temple, the muscles of her jaw tightening. The Inquisitor laughs a bit, maybe nervously, and puts her dripping hands up in a sign of truce.

“I’m sorry! You just looked so serious and I _had_ to—AH!”

The wave Cassandra causes with the scoop of her shield is so large that it succeeds in submerging the Inquisitor again. She resurfaces a heartbeat later in the middle of a wealth of bubbles, spitting water, hair clinging to the front of her face in a manner that’s not too far off from being identical with a sheepdog’s shaggy mane. She doesn’t separate the mess of it, just talks from underneath the curtain of her fringe.

“Cass, I’m proud. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

The Seeker looks down at the culprit over the impeccably straight line of her nose. “Don’t call me that.”

Another gargantuan wave. Nehn coughs. This time she pulls a leaf of blood lotus from her mouth.

“You deserved that,” Varric comments as the ripples settle.

“It was worth it.”

“I wasn’t talking about you, Smash.”

It takes about fifteen seconds for Cassandra to deliberate about what to do next, and then she simply dips her shield in the pond again, swivels around, and hurls it in the dwarf’s direction with every ounce of her strength. _Whoosh_. Varric yelps in shock and Nehn laughs without abandon, beating the bank of the basin with her palms.

“ _You_ deserved that!” Nehn says, and Varric tugs his sodden gloves off with an accompanying squelch. The dappled shadows cast by the canopy of trees above them are dancing on the skin of the pond, liquid silver and gold. “Dorian, care to join?”

“ _No_ ,” he retorts immediately, firmly. “Ring velvet shrinks in water.”

“Your loss.”

“I’m utterly heartbroken, believe me.”

“We’re not going anywhere until I dry out,” Varric announces.

“We won’t wait overmuch, then,” Cassandra says, quirking one elegantly-arched brow at him. “Given your size.”

Dorian whistles lowly. “You’re on fire today, my lady Seeker.”

“Try not to kill each other,” Nehn says as Varric levels a magnificent stink-eye at Cassandra. She lifts herself out of the water with just the help of her arms, exerting little to no effort. “There’s more than an adequate amount of angry bears in the Graves to do that for us.”

“Don’t worry, we’re past that phase,” Varric promises her. “There aren’t any tables around here anyway.”

That makes the Seeker scowl. “I already apologized for that.”

Varric smirks. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”

“I’m feeling rather peckish,” Dorian says offhandedly. “Might we do something about it?”

The Inquisitor twists her hair into one taut tail, wringing the moisture from it. “Let’s start heading back to camp.”

Cassandra likes the sound of that. “Yes. Let’s.”

 

…

 

Writers watch people.

They have to. It’s part of the job description—the one no one actually ever reads, because it hasn’t been put on paper, but writers across Thedas subscribe to it. The side-benefits, for most, include drinking, no sleep, and copious quantities of unfinished drafts that won’t come into contact with anyone but the fireplace. He knew the day he met the Boss that what they would go on to do would be worthy of a story. Now, he’s starting to think that no one would believe half of the shit that’s happened to them even if he did write it for others to see, and that would be _minus_ his usual… flourishes.

The subject of what might be his upcoming book disappeared into the back of the camp a few minutes ago, and hasn’t come back.

“Where is the Inquisitor?” Cassandra asks, looking around. The camps in the Exalted Plains aren’t extravagant, just the bare basics—tents, potions tables, sometimes ramshackle stalls for couriers’ mounts, and a mixed group of officers of many stations.

“Talking with the woman in grey,” Cole says. He worries at the lip of his nonsensically floppy hat with one hand. “Quiet, a little querulous. Questioning? No, more quizzical. She’s confused. The Inquisitor is explaining. Grey is expectant. Eager to understand.”

Cassandra has learned to temper the disturbance Cole causes her. The Inquisitor constantly speaks positively of him, and though Cassandra may not fully agree—she respects Lavellan’s opinion, perhaps enough to give this young man—spirit?—a chance. A small one. Not that she’d say as much aloud.

“’The requisition, Your Worship?’” Cole says, but both of his other companions know they’re not his words. “Halla. Herds. Forest, far, fending, first, and the festering fear of being followed. The Inquisitor doesn’t want halla leather. It’s too important, too… instrumental.”

Cassandra’s expression softens. “They’re sacred to the Dalish, are they not?”

“So I’ve heard,” Varric answers.

Cole’s eyes are on the sky. Blue and clear, just like it, alert and alive. “Dead stare. It’s looking at me. I should have been faster. The Keeper will be so disappointed. Why do people destroy good? I have to do better. Save them this time. They are not for hunting. Taste of mint. ‘You can’t do everything,’ Mother says. I can try.”

There’s not much you can take from that and pass it off as happy, Varric thinks. So he just keeps looking straight ahead at the dry and inhospitable flatland that lies beyond the camp.

“She’s keeping it for herself,” Cole murmurs at last. “This part. Not for the Inquisition. For the girl in the yellow. For who she used to be.”

Cassandra’s hand squeezes the pommel of her sword, grits her teeth. _That_ is when Varric decides—when they get back, next week, or the one after that, they’re rounding everyone up, and they’re sitting down for a nice old game of Wicked Grace.

Lavellan—no, _Nehn_ —deserves it.

 

…

 

“They’re holding the White Ford without much trouble, but the darkspawn are becoming an increasingly serious problem,” Cullen says, sighing. He runs a hand over the map of the Storm Coast, attempting vainly to prevent it from curling at the corners.

The Inquisitor is sitting beside him in a chair that is far too big for an elf her size, chin braced on a palm, face stony with concentration—he suspects she’s trying very hard to stop herself from falling asleep. He’d suggested they end this about twenty minutes ago, but she wouldn’t have it; and then she says _he’s_ the one too stubborn to let go of working.

“I need to finish up some business on the Storm Coast, so I’ll take a team there in a day or so,” she tells him, and blinks at the map very deliberately.

Her eyes—are one of the first things he noticed, and Maker, that sounds so very maudlin though it is the honest truth. They’re criminally green—a few varying shades of it, really, with a ring of coppery-brown around the pupil, a shining example of what hazel should be, and her lashes—ginger. Just like her hair. At first she’d been an abnormal coincidence, and then a very peculiar and unlikely solution to an even more unlikely problem, and _then_ … he doesn’t know how it happened. He’d leaned toward her to look at something and for the life of him he can’t recall what it was.

The crown of Nehn's skull is close to his cheek. The proximity comes with the slightest hint of the scent of rosemary. Her preferred soap. And he can’t think.

“I-Inquisitor, perhaps we…”

He turns to her, expecting a reply, but he’s met with the sight of her slumped head. Her eyes are closed and her breathing has slowed, passing between her parted lips gently. He smiles and brushes the single wave of her hair that’s fallen over the curve of her shoulder. He has to find a way to get her off of this chair, out of the war room, and up to her quarters—without waking her up. In a bit.

“Sweet dreams.”


End file.
